Sparks: Do we listen or hear?

Sunday

Oct 30, 2011 at 12:35 AM

John Ring

As he raised his bowed head there was the feeling of continual nothingness as his prayers seemingly bounced off the ceiling once again. The repeated cries for rescue were as if he was a man overboard in the Atlantic Ocean with no sign of life nearby other than the circling sharks bidding their time. It didn’t matter, life continued on. As the song writer wrote so accurately, “time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking.”

It is these times that seem to be reoccurring that make us as believers in Christ doubt, depressed and disturbed. There is a form of Christianity that doesn’t like to go there. There is the strange theology that only good things happen to Christians. If there is a hallowed emptiness in our lives it is due to our issues and “lack of faith.”

The amazing thing about such a statement is that often the suffering believer has a better view of the reality of the spiritual need than the “happy” one.

Theology has to function when we walk on the dark side of the moon as well as in the sun. If it does not function and hold truth, it is not a theology that points to Christ. All one has to do is read the first chapter of Job and realize that there is something more going on in life than what I can see and feel. However, we often base faith on our senses and feelings. We crave to be happy. We will often turn away from a sensible, Biblical view of God just so we “don’t go there.” No wonder Christians are having less and less influence in our culture (read anything by George Barna). Our theology is based on a view of happiness while our own Savior and Lord based our faith in pain and suffering. Whoops, I’m not supposed to say that. It makes us squirm.

All we have to do is read the very book that holds the truths and foundations of our faith. It is a book full of failure, destruction, depression and sin. Everything man touches goes bad. The heroes of our faith would not make it in today’s churches.

There is a crazy repetition that occurs in the Scriptures. The writers of the Holy Bible give us account after account of how we make a mess of life. Genesis 38 is a chapter of total mayhem. Job is hard to read. Jeremiah relates some horrible behavior. David, described by Jesus himself as a “man after God’s own heart” wrecks things of his own making

Often we get caught up with the drama of fallen life and miss the most important part of the redemption story. Genesis 35 begins with “God said to Jacob …” Job 38 after Job is left in misery begins with “Then the Lord answered…” This pattern reoccurs often in the history of man in relation to God. There is the hope and the beauty of our God. He hears. He answers. He sets the record straight. It is a matter of perspective. If we expect man to get it right, don’t hold your breath. If we wait for the Lord, as David often wrote in the Psalms, he will answer. Are we listening?

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